OS X 10.1 Coming Today (Sorta)

usa35.com writes "News.com has a story detailing the release of Apple's 10.1 update. They say "unveiled" today, probably meaning actually disseminated to us general public folks sometime in the coming days." This is of course the release that regular users can actually use. Supposedly this is a free upgrade. Speed improvements, UI fixes, DVD stuffs. I can't wait to test it out a little. And those new iBooks are pretty reasonably priced (I figure that they can sell them cheap by cutting corners like most of the mouse buttons ;)

Comments

on x86

[Anonymous Coward]

is there anyway to run this on intel x86 machine ?

YAHOO!

[dasmegabyte]

I've been using OSX for a while, and it is a real dog on any chip other than a G4. It's always been usable, but the windows don't have the snap-into-action feel that they need to satisfy an old Win2k afficianado such as myself. Furthermore, the OS was missing a lot of essential features, DVD being the most prominent, that are coming in full effect. Also exciting is the movement of a couple of important indicators to the empty space on the apple bar...my dock quickly fills up and I can't wait to lose things like the battery indicator that don't really need to be so big. Here's hoping the developers of such great dock apps as LoadInDock, Memory Manager, TempInDock (immeasurably useful, so you don't put a 140 degree lappy onto your legs while wearing shorts) and so on. It seems most of the visibility "enhancements" are just the hidden options in OS 10.4, unlockable via tweak panels...but it'll be nice to have more efficient effects like the scale available from a System Preference.

Ahhh, 10.1...OSX is finally a real operating system. Thank you, blue fairy!

Slightly missing the point of "slowness"

[A_Non_Moose]

Ok the 10.0.4 boxes I ran at work and home were slow in the aqua gui, truely, but as far as I/O,
processing, task switching, serving web/ftp...they all kicked ass to say the least.

For all the unix'ey love fests that take place on /. most here would be pleased to know that it is not BSD/Darwin that is slow, but the Aqua gui that ppl are bitching and moaning about (with good reason, IMO).

Lack of features, nope, not for what I used it for: Surfing, SETI, FTP, pr0n watching, vcd (mpg1, naturally), ssh, classic apps...it did it all with nary a hitch (just don't leave a DVD in the drive...kernel panic w/o fail on my box).

So, yeah 10.1 is a drool inducer ooo-ooo, shiney *blue* objects!!! (kiki the ferret voice) and dvd, speed tweaks and some needed + native cocoa apps are well and good, but I hope the OS's speed does not suffer, gui be damned.
(can you tell I'm a CLI type?)

Moose.

la la laaaaaa

Re:This is what 10.0 should have been

[2nd Post!]

Well that's the difference between a typical Mac user and a typical PC user; most PC users 'settle' for Microsoft, either cause it's what everyone else uses or because it's the only thing they know or they think Macs are expensive.

Apple's customers usually choose Macs in spite of, despite the prevailing norm of the PC users.

So Apple users will tolerate this kind of thing (oh, they'll complain), as long as it will improve. PC users, on the other hand, bitch because Microsoft doesn't truly mean anything to them, and Microsoft grows lazy, assuming things just because they own 90% of the market.

On the other hand Mac users are spoiled... what Windows OS comes with CD burning and DVD playback out of the box? Or even CD ripping and mp3 encoding, movie making, DVD burning software, and web server software out of the box? Windows users have to settle for Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer, on the average...

Yeah, just toss out that $60 mouse

[Anonymous Coward]

THERE's the problem. If it were a $5 POS, no big deal, but you've already paid $60 for a hobbled, less functional mouse that you're just going to trash.

I guess if you can afford one of their desktop systems, you can afford to throw out a $60 mouse and not blink.

Re:Yeah, just toss out that $60 mouse

[gig]

> THERE's the problem. If it were a $5 POS,
> no big deal, but you've already paid $60 for a
> hobbled, less functional mouse that you're just
> going to trash.

You are completely incorrect.

First, it's not hobbled ... it's an excellent pointing device for Mac OS X, which only requires one button. Mac OS X has a pervasive context-sensitive menubar at the top edge of the screen ... getting a second, limited, on-screen menu under your mouse cursor is just not that valuable. Mac users just slam the mouse cursor into the menubar and use the pull-down menus, which contain all of the options. Rather than right-click an item and choosing "Properties", you click on an item and choose File > Show Info from the pull-down menus (or press Command+I). Rather than right-clicking an image in a Web page and choosing "Save to disk", you just drag and drop the image from the Web browser window to the Finder (including Desktop) and it is saved as a file. All of the things that you may be used to doing with your second button have drag and drop or similar equivalents on Mac OS ... the user uses their one mouse and one button to move things around instead of using a second mouse button to display a text menu. Think about which is the best use of a mouse. After using a Mac, you might be pissed at Microsoft for all the broken drag and drop features in Windows (if you are a Windows user).

Second, you don't pay $60 for the mouse when you get it with a system. You can sell an Apple Optical Mouse on eBay and get $40 for it, which is likely more than you actually paid for it with a system. Use the $40 to buy whatever mouse you like. Any USB mouse works with Mac OS X. eBay can be operated with one mouse button on a Mac, so you will make it until the auction closes. If it was just a $5 POS mouse, all you would have is a $5 POS mouse, a non-biodegradable waste of space that you'd replace with a decent mouse later anyway. A good USB optical mouse is so compatible and has no moving parts ... it will last so long and get so much use that it will be almost free.

Honestly, it is CLASSIC for a person to get their first Mac after using Windows, complain about the one-button mouse, get out their old Windows USB mouse with two buttons, use that for a while, realize that they haven't hit the second button in three months, and go back to the Apple mouse, which you just cup in your hand and click with your palm ... very ergonomic. I did it, my wife did it, my brother did it. We all use Apple's mouse now. Try it and you'll see that there's more to it than meets the eye. Maybe you will even like it.

Re:who's the Mac speed king, OSX or Linux?

[Jeffrey Baker]

I use Debian PPC on a PowerBook G4, and it's a little slow. For everyday interactive use like email and web browsing, it is the equal of all my other systems. For anything that taxes the CPU, it's a pig. For example, compiling ethereal takes over 7 minutes. On my desktop (1.4 GHz athlon) it takes a little under 1 minute. That's not really proportionate. People claim that GCC doesn't produce efficient code on the PPC, but I don't know the technical details of that. I do know that OS X takes advantage of the AltiVec unit on the G4, while almost no Linux software (only mpeg2dec to my knowledge) does so.

Re:Get an update (maybe)

[mysticbob]

crazy? no.

crazy like a fox.

apple stores and comp usa both trap you in the store for 10 minutes while the cd burns, and guess what, you browse! it's perfect because instead of just bopping in grabbing a cd and leaving, you spend time in the store seeing all the other things you need. and i'll bet they've got market research to back up the idea.

it's pure evil and ingenious -- if only i'd thought of it...

Re:This is what 10.0 should have been

[firewort]

If you're going to quote, get the source right:

Here's what Steve Jobs said in Fortune in 1996. "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth--and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."

This was before Jobs returned to Apple. Having returned to Apple, he's doing what every business man should do, milk product for all the money he can. Work on the next great thing? A consumer-usable Unix, ala Mac OS X.

Sounds like he's sticking with his plan.

kind of slow, isn't he?

[hawk]

> I know at least one person who has specifically not gotten a mac
> laptop because of it's lack of mouse buttons.

Not the fastest snail on the leaf, is he?

I was hardly an early adopter, but I had two buttons on my mac in '92 or so (ok, hardly an early adopter of the second button. I had a 128k mac brand new . ,

They're availalbe all over the place, and come with the software to make that second button do whatever you want . . .

hawk, who gets a kick out of folks with the button-deprived windows mouse mocking those only slightly more deprived

Re:oh my dear lord

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey fucktard, it's a gods be damned laptop. It has 80 or so freakin buttons on it! You gotta have your useless mits on it anyway, so remove that finger from your ass and press the command key.

Dork.

Relax....

[Wadesworld]

For the Windows and Linux bigots, relax. You don't have to get so tense. If you don't think OS X is worth your time, then just ignore it.

On the otherhand, if you have a bit of an open mind, you owe it to yourself to check it out. (Make sure you're checking out 10.1 and not 10.0.x)

It really is cool to have a mainstream commercial app like MS Word and say GIMP running rootless right next to it.

It really is cool to program with the Cocoa dev tools. (Yes, it requires you learn Obj C, but if you're a true geek, you love trying another language)

It really is cool to have a BSD-based system that even your grandmother could install and use.

It really is cool that the BSD-subsystem is available for anyone to hack on (Darwin).

It really is cool that there's a commercial company (Apple) guiding the OS and putting in all the most sophisticated plumbing (Aqua, IOKit, etc) that probably would never have gotten done or would have gotten done poorly otherwise.

It really is cool that all the major commercial app manufacturers have already pledged their support (many have already delivered) and that many apps which have never been on the Mac before are now coming over.

It really is cool that there's going to be a decent selection of games for this platform. Not Windows numbers by any stretch, but all the major titles and certainly more than Linux.

In short, if you take the time to look, it really is a very cool OS. Now, maybe you don't want to spend the extra money to buy a Mac. No problem. But that doesn't make it any less of a product.

Wade

Re:iBooks still cost a premium

[TheInternet]

A DVD iBook with a 12" screen costs about $1500. An Intel-based laptop gives you an equivalent or faster processor, DVD and a 14" or 15" screen for a little less than that.

And it comes with firewire, ethernet and wireless antenneas? Is the processor actually faster, or just a higher clock rating?

Anyway, the point is moot. Apple has higher gross margins because it has an entire platform and various software products (many of which are free) to develop and market. Many grey box makers just slap a bunch of components in a box and compete to provide the lowest margins. That makes PCs more accessible financially, but it does not solve the problem of making them more accessible in terms of human interaction. It is a not an equation for evolving the concept of a personal computer. That takes product development. Forgetting that has undoubtably contributed to the huge downturn in the PC market.

The other problem is that you don't get much of a choice: if you don't like Apple's choice of peripherals (like their awful touch pad), you are out of luck.

How is the touch pad "awful?" And in terms of peripherals, the vast majority of wintel USB/FireWire devices work out of the box, or you can find drivers for them.

And, with its G3 processor, it's questionable whether the iBook is even fast enough to run reasonably complex OS X applications.

Is this based on personal experience with Mac OS X 10.1 on an iBook?

- Scott

Two-button mice, Mac OS X, and the meaning of life

[Karl Cocknozzle]

X plays nice with two-button mice by default.

Also, since peecees require a "feature" (second mouse button) that over 75% of their userbase doesn't understand how to use makes it a "design flaw" and not a "feature".

Re:Which is exactly the problem

[cpt kangarooski]

The 2d coward has correctly pointed out the flaw in your arguement. Fitt's Law has nothing to do with the edges of the screen per se. It is about target acquisition.

The _reason_ that targets at the corners and edges of the screen are so notoriously easy to acquire however, is that you cannot overshoot, because the mouse will move no further than the boundary of the screen.

For example, if you set up two monitors on a Mac, and positioned the 2d one logically above the 1st one, the Fitt's law advantage of the menubar is lost, because it has become possible to go above the menubar region.

If a target is already acquired as a target however, there is no travel time or target acquisition time needed at all! You are already there! Tog has an article on his website, asktog.com, called "A Test to Give You Fitt's" or something like that, which can go into this further if you like.

As for your comment regarding unused menu items in a contextual menu... First, what does this have to do with Fitt's Law? Second, a good contextual menu will only show appropriate options, with the rare exception. There really shouldn't be unusable menu items in a contextual menu.